Sky's video-on-demand service has had its fair share of names. Originally launched in January 2006, under the name of SkyByBroadband, the service has since evolved into Sky Anytime, and become available on PC, mobile and Sky set-top boxes.
Now, there's another name change in the air, and Sky has rebranded the service as Sky Player. A Sky spokesperson states that the decision to take on the Sky Player brand is "in recognition of the public’s growing awareness of additional online video player services" and to "help newcomers to the service understand its core functionality."
In other words, BBC's iPlayer has become hugely popular and Sky's Anytime, hasn't. Sky hopes to turn that around by blurring the gap between the two.
The rebranding, however, isn't all that's new. Along with the new name, Sky has upgraded the service to provide live feeds of its Sky News and Sky Sports channels.
Having launched its video-on-demand service over two years ago, Sky must be wondering how the BBC has managed to make such an impact, in such a short time, with the iPlayer. It'll be hoping its blatantly-renamed Sky Player can achieve similar results.
Official product page: anytimepc.sky.com
